


Feathers

by mckinnikins



Series: Strings and Feathers [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Friendship, Implied Relationships, Jealousy, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, honestly i'm pretty sure erin yelled at me about this one, nothing is fair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:52:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4959622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mckinnikins/pseuds/mckinnikins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, when dead boys are in love with snakes</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feathers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Erin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erin/gifts).



> Hello again! If you're reading my works for the first time, maybe go to Part 1 first, just to make things clear. Or, if you're just here for jealous petty Noah Czerny, well, hey, you've come to the right place. My trc blog is mmmmsoftglitter, I'd appreciate reviews or kudos or whatever, and just remember that ghosts have feelings too.

Noah Czerny is dead. Deceased. Maggot food. Pushing daisies.

He should be resting in peace right now, in heaven or hell or wherever poor little rich boys go when they get brained with a skateboard by their best friend. Former best friend. 

Instead, he’s sitting cross-legged on Ronan Lynch’s bed, watching the other boy (alive, so alive) as he paces, stops, glares at Noah with his most menacing, most adorable expression, mutters under his breath, paces again. His room is not particularly long, so this routine is repeated quite a few times before finally, perhaps just to appease the increasingly aggravated complaints of Chainsaw, Ronan flops, face first, onto the bed. Noah strokes the back of his current best friend’s head, silently marvels at the softness of hair that’s probably in need of a shave. 

“He didn’t even say anything about it,” Ronan mumbles into his bed as Noah’s feather-light fingers massage the back of his skull. The dead boy is reminded, briefly, of a teenage girl moping over her crush on a movie his sister used to love. He tries to grasp onto the flash of his old life, but it, like everything else, fades too soon. Noah giggles with a sad sort of whimsicalness and Ronan raises his head to glare at him. 

“It’s not fucking funny, Noah. You told Blue. What the hell were you doing spying on me anyway?” Noah shrugs with barely there shoulders. He can feel himself fading. “It’s a secret,” he says, soft voice almost petulant. Noah adds, with a wavering smile (or is it him that’s wavering? It’s hard to tell, sometimes), “talk to him. He’ll be awake. He’s always awake." 

Ronan does go, eyes dark with something that might be anger or uncertainty, of perhaps anger at his own uncertainty. Noah doesn’t follow. He didn’t follow last night either, but when he saw Ronan come back home last night, tiptoeing past Gansey’s prone form on the rarely used bed, his expression was one of joy and gentleness and hope and Noah knew, and his cold, seven-years-dead heart sank. 

Jealousy doesn’t suit dead boys. 

Noah fades, he thinks, after Ronan leaves. Something makes the leyline surge though, like a car pounding into motion and he’s sitting beside Gansey’s head when Ronan returns. Noah doesn’t look at Ronan, doesn’t want to see the happiness in his face that courses through the atmosphere.

The middle Lynch doesn’t even acknowledge the ghost boy, so caught up in his own joy is he. Noah sighs silently at the sound of Ronan’s door closing and goes back to decorating Gansey’s hair with mint leaves, to ward off wasps. The sleeping boy looks regal, even with the mask of Richard Campbell Gansey iii put away for the night. Noah is glad that this is who he gave up his life in exchange for.

But he wishes he was alive. He wishes his hands were warm again. He wishes Ronan Lynch would look at him the way that he looks at Adam Parrish.

Nothing is fair.


End file.
